DI-mania and a little shabby vintage chic

Hi! I have been busy practicing this week! Yay! I signed up for Jennifer McGuire's Inspiration Showcase class online and have been playing at least a little bit in the craftroom every day.  I have several birthdays in my circle of friends and family this month, too, so it's definitely time to get cranking out the projects. =)

I must say that I am not a huge fan of vintage style. With no offense meant to Tim Holtz, all that antique advertising and aged, distressed, grunged-out artwork... well, I don't find some of it appealing (bingo cards, tickets, dress forms?) Sometimes I find myself ooohing and ahhhing, sometimes I just don't get it.  That said, I do like a certain amount of distressing and sort of shabbiness when they give character or make something really pop. Distress inks on edges and some of the slightly grunged but still pretty papers do appeal to me, so as I find my way into my own style, I decided to play a little on a card meant for a coworker's birthday this month.

The papers were really my inspiration for the rest of the card. The pink and brown butterfly printed paper in particular was the jumping off point for everything else. A little shabby and worn, but still pretty. =)

My base is textured cardstock liberally sprayed with Smooch Spritzes. The blue was clogged, which I didn't discover until I had started spraying, but once one edge got all spotted/drippy-looking, I just finished it off that way. Not what I really wanted, but it turned out ok, I think.

I embossed and cut a tag out of a bit of Nestabilities packaging and layered it over a tag of cream mulberry paper and affixed it on popdots. In person you can just barely see the hint of the pink butterfly on the paper through the tag, which is nice. I distress-inked the edges. It worked really well on the plastic; will have to remember that again. I DI'ed a Martha Stewart butterfly nearly to death with both inks and stains and added Distress Stickles for the body. I used distress inks on all of the flowers, too, and used the white Picket Fence Distress Stain to tone down the too-bright blue of a couple of roses.

I added a lot of pearls - large ones in the corners in pink and light blue, itty bitty champagne ones on the tag and the Nesties label for the greeting. They all looked too clean and new though, so I ran the tip of a Copics E35 over them and swiped it off before it dried completely. Definitely another trick to remember.

The inside I finished off pretty simply. I used a sheet of light turquoise vellum layered over a peachy-pink cardstock that matched the papers inside for the tag where I'll write my message. A few more play-time MS butterflies on the opposite side and voila!  My first non-cute, shabby sort of vintage collage-y card.  When I was building my card, I thought perhaps I needed some laces or ribbon bits along the same vintage feel... and I thought perhaps a few aged metallic charms might not have been a bad idea either. (Why is it that no matter how many crafty supplies you have, there's always something else that you need/want/are dying to have? haha)  Would it win any awards? Probably not. But as it always is with a handmade card, if the recipient likes it, then it's a success. =)  And I do love that the crafting universe is big enough for everyone to find something that appeals to their artistic senses and to take bits and pieces from other styles and bring it together into a creation of love.

Meanwhile, I am thinking that fans of Tim Holtz may want to start a trend in nail polish that looks like distress-ink splotches so that our inky fingers are always in style. ;)

 Happy crafting - see you soon! =)